THUNDER BAY — It's still early in the season, but officials at both Loch Lomond and Mount Baldy say they've seen an increase in visitors compared to last winter.
Jason Gerry, the general manager of Loch Lomond Ski Area, joined skiers on the slopes over the weekend. He said they’ve had a really strong uptake in their ski programs so far.
“We’ve just finished our first week of ski camps, which were almost at capacity, and now our second week, we’re like at or above (capacity),” said Gerry.
“We’ve actually had to open up more spaces for kids in skiing programs, which is fantastic. That’s something that we really look at to determine where we’re at in the season and so far, we’ve had a really positive response from registrations in our camps and programming, so we’re, yeah, basically full with all of our ski programs all the way booked until March right now.”
While a lack of snow until January made for a pretty tough last year, Gerry said Loch Lomond was lucky earlier this December, having around 16 inches of natural snow followed by some great snowmaking weather.
These conditions will allow for some fun upcoming programs, including a ski-by-donation day on Jan. 1 and Family Day weekend activities.
It will also hold many family-friendly ski events, from kids’ programs, race events and freestyle events on the weekends to Friday night, live entertainment in its lounge.
Jason Kardas, a co-owner of Mount Baldy Ski Area, estimated that Mount Baldy is likely up by 10 or 15 per cent in visits compared to last year.
Although recent rainfall has made for a second unusual year, he said the weather is much better than it was last December, with pouring rain and thundershowers during the holidays — something he said he had never seen in his ‘lifetime in Thunder Bay.’
“I would probably say the numbers are a little bit up for sure from last year, but generally, at Christmas, you don’t have rain, which we did have a rain on … Saturday… So when that happens, obviously people, when they see rain in town, even though it was snowing out at the hill, they just assume, don’t come out, right? So those days are always going to be slow for us,” said Kardas.
However, Kardas said people were excited about the snowfall in the forecast.
He said the biggest thing that’s definitely jumped out at him this year is that a lot more new groups and families are coming out.
“I definitely see the numbers of people wanting to try skiing out is way up on that side of things. So, our rentals are higher and I think that’s because families, instead of heading to Mexico or down south, they’ve opted to maybe stay in town this year and so that’s why I think they’re trying skiing out,” said Kardas.
“So that’s one thing I see as far as excitement out of the hill is just a lot more new families coming out, a lot of new faces, which is great. That means the sport’s growing, which that’s the direction we want obviously to be going.”
Otherwise, he said the warmer weather was also key to seeing more people.
“When it’s minus 20 C, it’s not so much fun, but when it’s warmer weather, that’s also a lot more fun for everyone to enjoy,” said Kardas.
Going ahead, Kardas encourages skiing as a super fun sport to do with the family and an alternative to going out to the hockey rinks.
“A really nice thing with skiing is everyone can do it, or snowboarding, everyone can go have fun. But that nice thing is when you’re sitting on the chair lift, you have that 10 minutes to chat each time you go up the chair lift just about life, and that’s one thing that a lot of families do tell me,” said Kardas.
He said that once they try the sport, even once or twice, people generally realize that ‘wow, this is a great family outing.’
Mount Baldy has not finalized its January calendar yet, but Kardas said they have a few things in the works as far as freestyle competitions and will open up night skiing with tubing on Fridays and Saturdays.
He said their calendar should be out in the new year.
